The release of the Food Banks Canada report every November is an annual reality jolt — hunger in a land of plenty and surplus food.
There are many reasons why more than 800,000 Canadians typically use food banks every month — poverty, illness, unemployment, addiction, some bad personal choices among them.
But at its core, allowing hunger to exist in one of the world’s most affluent countries is a political choice.
Money is invested in infrastructure, military and various other national or local projects deemed worthy. Canada joins a war in Afghanistan and billions of dollars are found to fund the effort.
Read Also
Producers face the reality of shifting grain price expectations
Significant price shifts have occurred in various grains as compared to what was expected at the beginning of the calendar year. Crop insurance prices can be used as a base for the changes.
A “war on hunger,” if such a beast was ever declared, would lag in funding. It is an issue Canadians would rather slip under the rug, surely a reflection not on our generous society but on some individual circumstances or choices.
But in truth, like medical costs, housing or other necessities, providing adequate nutrition to the poor and their children should be, could be, a national priority if governments and citizens decided it was.
So far, it mainly is charities, churches and volunteers who fill the gap.
So here are the stark numbers from the latest food bank national report:
- An average 833,000 Canadians use food banks at least once a month for a meal. Forty percent of those are children.
- Many who line up at food banks are seniors without enough money to pay for both accommodation and food.
- Slightly less than 20 percent of food bank patrons are employed but do not make enough money to provide all the food necessary for their family.
The slightly good news is that food bank use has dropped marginally on the Prairies during the past year but it still remains higher than it was when the last recession began in 2008.
One of the cities highlighted in this year’s report is Brandon, a booming city with low apartment vacancy rates and unemployment below four percent.
Yet Marla Somersall, executive director of Samaritan House in the city, says it means the cost of living has escalated and many workers including immigrant labourers do not make enough at low-end jobs to pay the bills.
“Our food bank is serving almost double the number of people it was in 2008 and our employment, training and job search programs cannot respond adequately,” she says in the Food Banks Canada report.
In the House of Commons it was all political last week with New Democrats blaming the Conservatives for increasing hunger and Conservatives touting a new international report that calls Canada one of the best countries in the world when quality of life is measured.
It is all so predictable and depressing.
Not all can be helped but the country doesn’t even recognize the crime of hunger in the midst of food surpluses and substantial waste.
Nigel Wright, the rich Bay Street money man and former chief of staff to prime minister Stephen Harper, is reportedly spending his time these days while under investigation by the RCMP, working long hours at a soup kitchen.
Good on him, but was the hunger file ever pushed within government on his watch as one of the government’s most influential players?
